One concern my dear wife and I received when we were exploring adoption was our inexperience as parents. That would be, some social workers told us, a potential flaw when our profile was matched up against others wanted to adopt a special needs child. It would serve us better if we consented to being foster parents to gain “experience.”

That was a difficult challenge. We waffled on it, going back and forth, First, not wanting to be foster parents, because it wasn’t part of our eventual goal: adopting children. Then we consenting during our training when we saw the need. At the end of our certification process, we declined because we started to see the reality of unfit parents tying up the legal and social work system for years to string out their un-parental behavior.

The State of Iowa stated that the goal of foster care was to return children to healthier birth parents. Anita and I foresaw the situation in which we knew this was not in the best interests of the child. So we went ahead and hoped for the best.

When we adopted our daughter, our profile was matched pretty well with a little girl who had floundered in foster homes with many children. We would be able to provide singular attention to one child. Anita and I had arranged our lives around my single income and her staying at home, so we could devote maximum care and attention to our child.

We were not very experienced in the nuances of parenting, but we learned fast. We were motivated out of love, and sometimes, a confused semi-desperation.

I don’t think adoption is promoted enough as an option for existing families with children. It is a mark of a certain adult narcissism that adoption is often promoted as a solution for childlessness rather than a solution for the child.

From the beginning, we approached adoption with our then-five-year-old daughter as a mutual choice. We adopted her. She adopted us. When we were in the courthouse in December 2001, the judge questioned Brittany on her wishes, and he emphasized adoption was the mutual building of a family.

The emphasis on adopting infants, even needy infants from abroad, can mask at times, the great need for domestic adoptions. Adopting older children is a risk, no doubt. Our daughter’s godparents adopted eight older children, and their family is large, rich, and full of grandchildren. We know other families who have taken children into the home along with birth children. While there are obstacles to overcome there, we know such families–few as they are–are strong and supportive not just to the adoptive children, but to all the members.

One important pro-life approach Catholic Charities departments in dioceses can implement is promoting adoption of older children to families that already include birth children. Let’s keep in mind that a marriage can thrive without children, but almost all children will need parents in order to thrive. The need is far greater on the child’s end of adoption. Let’s keep the focus on the kids, where it belongs.

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About catholicsensibility

Todd and his family live in Ames, Iowa. He serves a Catholic parish of both Iowa State students and town residents.

3 Responses to Adoption for Experienced Parents

“The State of Iowa stated that the goal of foster care was to return children to healthier birth parents.”

Is that supposed to be ironic?

The more I deal with the foster care system, the more I’m convinced that the State of Iowa is completely CLUELESS about what makes a family healthy, what children need, or how to help people pull their lives together.
Linn county has a family court judge who doesn’t see a connection between stable income, reliable access to medical care, and a stable home life.

They tell foster parents that they’re supposed to support reunification, but then the foster parents see cases drag out when parents are obviously never going to get their lives together, and they see kids who were put in foster care for trivial reasons, they see kids get returned home to monsters like Antwuan Williams, and they see kids kept away from loving parents due to bureaucratic technicalities.

I can see both sides of this. Parental rights are not to be terminated without grave and ongoing cause. We need to give birth parents the opportunity to step up to the plate and become the parents we all have the potential to be.

Sometimes this simply does not happen.

We have parents who behave for the requisite amount of time to get their children back, and then they fall back into the same old behaviors.

But we have to be wary of the state having the power to take your children away and giving them to someone else simply because they want them (and might have enough money to game a corrupt system).

As much as I’d like to see children more pro actively rescued, I fear the slippery slope.

about Todd Flowerday

A Roman Catholic lay person, married (since 1996), with one adopted child (since 2001). I serve a parish in music ministry.

about John Donaghy

John is a lay missionary since 2007 with a parish in western Honduras. Before that he served in campus ministry and social justice ministry in Iowa. His ministry blog is http://hermanojuancito.blogspot.com

He also blogs reflections on the lectionary and saints/heroes/events of the date at http://walktheway.wordpress.com

He'll be a long-term contributor here analyzing the Latin American bishops' document from their 2007 Aparecida Conference.